When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites! -Jesus Christ, Matthew 6:5
I have prayed a few thousand people in my lifetime. Have shed many tears as I felt the pain of my brothers and sisters in the faith. I have spent years praying silently and in private for my wife as she struggled with disability and pain. I prayed constantly for my first wife before she died,
So I am acquainted with the struggles that come from unanswered prayers. Yet I still pray. I have a prayer blog. Even so, these days I seem to pray differently. I no longer pray for the home run. The miracle that will cure our ills and begin a new inning ... a new chapter ... and a new season.
These days I mainly pray to know how to love better. I want to be able to flow with the pain and the suffering. So I ask God to help me do that. I so want to be able to love like Jesus. I want to be a divine extension of heaven. Yet I have found that the path is not filled with miracles.
For sure, I still want miracles. But I do not want miracles to become an idol. In contrast, I pray for things like contentment. I wrestle with the Spirit about my painful struggles. This wrestling has become a beautiful outgrowth of my prayer life. It is so real.
What do you think praying like a hypocrite looks like? Could it be just praying to show our piety? Maybe just mouthing religious words and not believing them with your heart? Perhaps it is saying the Lord's praying like a magical incantation? I can see merit in all of that.
But what if it is something much simpler? What if it is praying without love and compassion? What if it is praying with a coldness or a certainty that does not break your heart? What if prayer is all about allowing yourself, at least in part, to enter into another human's pain?
Jesus demonstrated this kind of caring. On many occasions it is written of him that he was moved by compassion. I think that his friends could visibly see this. Perhaps it was a change in posture. Or maybe a facial expression. I think that many times Jesus' compassion came out in tears.
In any case, my point is that unless a prayer touches you deeply it may be somewhat hypocritical. King David once said of himself that he would not give something that costs him nothing. Perhaps there is a lesson in there about prayer? Maybe prayers that do not cost us are just cheap and meaningless?
This is a hard thing to hear. In our "thoughts and prayers" world, I think that we have cheapened our prayers. We have substituted mindless supplications for genuine prayers that break us. We have become people who think that God hears and answers cheap prayers.
So what do you think the world would look like if people did not pray as hypocrites? Here are the verses that immediately precede Jesus' words about not praying like hypocrites. In these verses, I think that we get a brief picture of the mind and heart of God about prayer.
"So when you give something to a needy person, do not make a big show of it, as the hypocrites do in the houses of worship and on the streets. They do it so that people will praise them. I assure you, they have already been paid in full. But when you help a needy person, do it in such a way that even your closest friend will not know about it. Then it will be a private matter. And your Father, who sees what you do in private, will reward you."These verse cut us. They expose us. They are meant to embarrass us. They are meant to teach us about prayer. It is as if Jesus was setting us up. As he speaks of helping the needy, he is teaching us that prayer is so much more that public prayers. Prayers are meant to break us and cost us.
You may be confused by the idea that prayer costs us something. Certainly prayer costs us time out of our day. Still. I suggest that prayer costs us more than that. I think that prayer is an act of giving a piece of ourselves. Of not only our time but our emotions and our actions.
For what good is prayer, if it is not a joining of our hearts and actions with God. I mean, what if prayer is more than asking but giving as well. What if prayer is an extension of divine will and providence on the earth? What if God wants to work through prayer in meaningful ways?
Sadly, I still play the hypocrite when I pray. Old habits are hard to break. And sometimes I am not ready to enter into prayers that break my heart. I do not want to cry. It is so hard to get out of my comfort zone. Yet I do understand that unlearning and learning is a process.
I ask you. Will you join me? Will you allow yourself to rise above "thoughts and prayers" and let your heart break as Jesus did. And maybe allow yourself to cry with the hurting and the broken. I think that these sorts of prayers have the power to defeat hypocrisy. May they do just that for you.
... this devotion is part of a series on my spiritual deconstruction. Click here to read more.
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